The global media coverage of the death of Pope John Paul ii evoked for some commentators the prophecy, attributed to Malraux, that ‘the 21st century will be religious or it will not be’. Yet which of the thirty centuries that have left a written record has not been religious? The enlightened 18th, perhaps; but only superficially. Like many atheists, Malraux himself was profoundly religious. He knew that science cannot create bonds between people; that the relationships between human consciousnesses are imaginary—or they are not. The resurgence of sacramental passions in the late 20th century should surprise only those who espoused the naive 19th century credo, that the progress of science and technology would drive away superstition and beliefs; that religion was a mere left-over, an irrational residue which the future would erase.
Neither juridical norms nor economic interests suffice to create a consistent collectivity, a sense of belonging or of a shared destiny. A unifying principle is required, whether divine or human, supernatural or mythological; one that is necessarily superior to the contingent plane on which we live. ‘What would become of us’, Paul Valéry asked, ‘without the succour of that which does not exist?’ This is what is meant by communion, as a neutral term, neither good nor bad; a statement of fact. The revealed religions have provided only a late version of this, a marginal one in historical terms. The unique and personal God only goes back 2,500 years. The earliest known burial ground, as a first indication of belief in the invisible, is from 300,000 years ago. It is the sacred—whether secular or confessional, historical or supernatural—that is universal; not scripture, dogma, the clergy, revelation.